WebGL is an API that enables 3D graphics directly in a web browser without separate software or plug-ins. It allows direct access to the GPU and is implemented through JavaScript. The canvas element in HTML5 made it possible, and it is based on OpenGL ES®. It can be used to create interactive programs and 3D visualization software, but security risks prevent it from being widely accepted.
The Web-Based Graphics Library (WebGL) is an abstract programming interface (API) designed to enable three-dimensional (3D) graphics directly in a web browser without the need for separate software or plug-ins from the main browser . The difference between 3D WebGL and other browser-based 3D graphics languages, such as Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML), is that 3D WebGL allows direct access to the graphics processing unit (GPU) on the hardware video card present in the computer. Another difference is that 3D WebGL is not a separate language but an API implemented through the JavaScript® scripting language which is natively understood by almost all web browsers. Although this type of direct, low-level access to the While computer system hardware is one of WebGL’s strengths, it is also one of its biggest problems, because it has a number of security problems that are not easily fixed.
An important development that made 3D WebGL possible is the introduction of the canvas element in the HyperText Markup Language version 5 (HTML5) specification. The canvas element allows low-level access to a window that can be drawn and manipulated in a style consistent with existing types of rendering APIs in other computer programming languages. The WebGL API works with this accelerated canvas to provide the ability to render complex scenes very quickly without having to rely on software emulation across different platforms or implementations.
The 3D WebGL API not only uses the canvas element, but is also based on the Open Graphics Library for Embedded Systems (OpenGL ES®). This is a portable version of the OpenGL® standard library designed to be portable not only between different computer operating systems, but also across any device that requires the use of low-level 3D graphics. This small footprint allows you to integrate the library into any browser for almost any device.
The implementation of 3D WebGL allows for the development of interactive programs that can be run directly from within a website or downloaded and run as a standalone application within the web browser. It can be used to create 3D video games, educational software, simulations and 3D visualization software for scientific and corporate research. By using the browser as a wrapper application, 3D environments can be developed without having to worry about repetitive boilerplate code for basic interfaces.
One of the major disadvantages of using 3D WebGL, and one that prevents it from becoming widely accepted by some software and hardware companies, is the security risk it presents. A program’s ability to access the GPU can give a malicious program the ability to force the host computer system to execute malicious code. Denial of Service (DOS) attacks have also been shown to be possible using the WebGL API. For this reason, some major computer companies refuse to fully support WebGL in their products.
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